


The Space Between: Hope to Keep Safe from Pain

by Runeless



Series: Into the Fire [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Loss, M/M, Moirallegiance, Multi, Pale Romance, Shadows and Sunlight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 12:42:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runeless/pseuds/Runeless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the days after Kanaya's defeat, Eridan Ampora deals with the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Walking in the Sun

**The Space Between**

**Hope to Keep Safe from Pain**

 

 Prologue: Walking in the Sun

Terezi Pyrope

“ A moirail is like… like having the ground under your feet. Something you can trust absolutely.”

-          **Troll Will Smith**

Everyone on the planet is pale for Eridan Ampora except you.

And frankly you don’t really blame them. Eridan Ampora’s story is the most depressing thing you have ever heard; the fucking Subjugglators of old would have shaken their heads and frowned upon hearing it. First his gang turns on him, then the Clown beat them all to death.

(The Clown! Best part of story, you are so totally head over heels for him, a ridiculous schoolgirl crush you allow yourself to feel because it’s fun and exciting, and it’s nice to feel young again. This job has aged you terribly.)

That story had a silver lining- his moirail, who he had secretly been red for, flipped matesprit for him! And that would be a silver lining in truth… but for the next event. A monster from old fantasy stories, from _myth_ \- a rainbow drinker- descends upon him like the wrath of the Messiahs and bit his matesprit, turning her, and then bit _him_ , turning them both into monsters and immediately shoveling them onto the frontlines of a war to take over the Empire. A war whose armies were composed of mutated trolls force-birthed out of a mutated mothergrub lusus, which was a perversion on so many scales that one of Nepeta’s higher-up priests, a nice jadeblood fellow you had met at civic functions once or twice, had recently temporarily vacated his position due to mental stress over it, and was recuperating in his flowerblood moirail’s arms.

(It was not an overstated reaction. You’ve required every policeradicator and mercenailer you’ve put on the task of dealing with any remaining living mutants, and a general cleaning out of the sewers, to have a moirail and at least one other quadrant filled, preferably red. Moirails were the biggest source of stability, but the other quadrants helped too. And even with that precaution you’re still losing people to pure emotional stress beyond the battle casualties.)

But Eridan’s torment was not merely that of having himself and his reddest transformed into monsters. He was _also_ being pale-raped by the one who had turned him, forced into a conciliatory relationship he did not want.

And after all that, he had to kill his matesprit himself, and then be chopped in half by the woman who had been pale-raping him.

You are genuinely sorry you saved his life; you didn’t know.

So he’s a lowblood with a backstory so traumatic that even the biggest hacks among the writormentors would reject it as being too unbelievable. He’s snappy, angry, and obviously hurting.

He is the _ultimate_ pale romance interest, is what you are trying to say, and combined with the rape it’s just adding another sad chapter in his horrible history; he’s been snapping at pale attempts recently. You know Nepeta- who is probably the smartest person in your group when it comes to relationships, bar none- has already warned off all the others about the fact that they are _all_ kind of pale for him, just out of sheer pity for what he’s been put through, and that considering what happened to him once already, to surround him with pale horndog highbloods would be cruel.

It’s one reason you keep sending Vriska to see him. She’s mentioned she had a black fling with him once before, so he knows her- and maybe another lowblood can keep him from freaking out. It wasn’t everyday a seadweller ended up surrounded by highbloods, after all. Best not to keep from bothering him too badly- you wouldn’t be surprised if he walked off the outer walls soon, just jumped into the waiting arms of the endless dead.

You wouldn’t even blame him.

(And the reason why is this- you _almost_ lost your palest right after you got her, after waiting so long, and if you had… then you would have walked off the walls yourself. You can understand, to the extent anyone can understand, what Eridan is going through. If you had lost Vriska…)

It is why, in your own act of kindness, you have ensured that you are on watch during the day, so that if he comes to you begging to leave and walk in the sun, you will open the door for him.

(Death is not always cruel.)

You hope it will not come to that, but you have always known the minds of others… and you can think of little, save his love returned to him, that could truly heal Eridan.

No matter what Sollux tries.


	2. No Hope in You for Me

Eridan Ampora

**No Hope in You for Me**

“ To be somebody’s matesprit is to worship that person. Worship the very ground they walk on. Nothing as sacred as flushed. Nothing.”

-          **Troll Shia Lebouf**

 

                Everything you are is a desert, ever-expanding.

                You don’t even really think about it. Not the way you’d think, focusing on it every day- that’s how you do it, right? That’s how grief consumes you, you keep thinking about it and getting sadder, can’t stop thinking about it driving you crazy.

                You’re not doing that. You’re just… empty.

                The only thought that calms the barren sand of your soul- that spreads some semblance of comfort, that gives you a cool rag against your forehead and shade from the sun- is a dark one, as it should be.

                If you die, they’ll take you in.

                And even the survival instinct cannot save you forever. That animal need to survive will crumble, someday, for the intellect is always superior to the beast.

                It takes two months, but one day, you rise from your recuparoon, and you know where you are going. You step out of the hospital recuparoon, put on your best clothes- fine versions of your old clothes, bought as a gift by the Empress as a way of restoring your wardrobe after all the rest of it- pick up your wand, the same one you killed Feferi with. Appropriate. The wand that set her free will set you free.

                You head out, leaving the others sleeping, only glancing at Sollux’s own coon.

                (He’s left you alone, made it clear that he’s pale for you but not pushed it. You’re grateful for that- both parts.)

                Terezi is at the door, blind eyes watching the wand in your hand. You don’t know why- it’s not for _her_.

                “ Leaving?” she finally says, this woman who you never thought you’d stand before for any reason but a criminal charge. You always thought that, if you fucked up and met Commisslaughter Pyrope, it’d be when she was sentencing you to execution, not… sadly stating the obvious?

You shrug it off. It becomes a tumbleweed across parched sands. It doesn’t matter.

“ Yes.” Your voice is as dry as your soul, nothing left.

She sighs. “ Ok,” she rasps, standing to the side and pointing out the door. “ And Eridan? Goodbye. And… I’m sorry I saved you.”

You look at her, suddenly sparked a bit by that, the tiniest storm over the sun. “ Wwhat?”

She shrugs. “ I… didn’t know about any of it. I’m sorry I saved you. You should have died down there.”

The storm drops a little rain before it goes, and you soften a bit. “ Yes,” you say, “ I should havve.”

She nods, offers you a surprisingly broad smile. She’s a madgirl at heart, and death is part of that. “ Then get out there and do a flip when you jump, seadweller. Go back to your woman.”

                You laugh, unexpected as rain on the sands. “ Not… not gonna do it like that. Thanks. Shouldn’t you be trying to stop me?”

                She shakes her head. “ Nope. You have a right to die if you want to.”

                “ And I do,” you half-whisper, looking away. “ I wwant to more than anything.”

                She nods, jerks her head to the door. “ Need anything before you go?”

                “ Just… directions.”

You don’t actually know where Feferi’s monument is, but you will in a moment.

 

 

**Sollux Captor**

 

Equius shakes you awake. You know it’s her because the motion is very slight, and it still almost dislocates your arm.

“ What?” you grumble, irritated, trying to slink back into your sopor slime like a bothered shark.

“ Eridan has left the building,” Equius states.

“ So he’s Troll Elvis now?” you grumble before your head catches up with what she said. It’s hard to do, what with being both asleep recently and still high as hell on painkillers, but your eyes flicker to the windows, see them shutting out brilliant hot light. It’s noon…

You lift yourself out of your bed on a burst of psionic power. “ Oh shit!”

She nods. “ I noticed it when I came in to check on the recuperating patients. Terezi said he’d left a few minutes ago, heading to Feferi’s statue.”

“ Why didn’t she wake me up? Fuck fuck fuck…” You whip clothes on, ignoring Equius’ embarrassed expression and wishing your new eyes were a bit better- still hadn’t put the good ones in yet. “ Fuck!”

“ I have… err, already called a cab, highblood.” Equius is looking away and blushing ferociously, which is… kinda cute, actually. A big girl like her.

( _Later, painkiller Romeo_.)

“ Let’s fucking go!” you yell, and fly right out of the room, Equius trailing behind.

-

**ERIDAN AMPORA**

Your eyes aren’t as bothered by the sun as they should be. You see the city as it is in the day- quiet, all activity a rumble underground or a rumble at the walls, the Dayguard fighting the endless undead. There have been miles of dead and miles of death on this land, this Alternia, where the sun is harsh and bright in day. If not for the sun in your own veins, you would bake, a seadweller evaporating in the heat; but the heat inside you is higher and dryer even then this, so you walk under without fear. Passerby glance at you from time to time but you only meet a few, even though it’s quite a walk to Feferi’s tomb; all in heavy protective clothing, most with guards. They all ignore you.

When you get to the memorial clearing, it’s totally empty. It is a set of statues, commemorating The Dead of These Times of WAR; THE HONORED DEAD OF THE 412TH CIVIL WAR OF THE NEW ALTERNIAN EMPIRE, STARS BE PRAISEDin bad font, bolded to offend more people. The list of names is short, as most of the dead were mutants; still, you recognize some of the others from what you’ve been told by the highbloods, such as the names of the guards you helped kill in total silence, at the behest of the bright goddess.

(Kanaya. Her planning was incredible. Her control impossible. You can’t… you can’t think of her without _pain_ , taking you, making you _hers_ , no way out...)

You only realize you’ve stopped a few minutes later, your vision all green eyes and hungry fangs, but you shake it off and keep going, entering the memorial area . Eternity awaits.

You’ll be at peace soon.

The memorial consists of various stone-inscribed monuments sticking up out of the ground, obelisks of names, covered in sun symbols. You barely notice- it’s not appropriate for Feferi’s grave, it was light that killed her, twic over. She died when Kanaya’s light corrupted her soul and she died when your light set her free, and while she was grateful for that last, it is death still, and her grave should be moon symbols, water symbols, darkness and tentacles. It should reflect her _life_.

But you forgive them. They remembered her, at least, and Sollux… Sollux was true, he made a memorial for a seadweller, and that _never_ happens.

(Sollux. His pale desire is … he’s respectful and honest and true, and that’s good, and you’d almost return it but… pale makes you think of Kanaya, makes the heart sick stop start thud pound, hard to hold on to your wand when the memories overwhelm. It would take time to return his advances, and time is what you do not have. What you will end. You will not suffer these long centuries, forget Feferi and all you shared- you will die as the troll who loved her. You will die _this_ self.)

You remember to breathe, and stumble onward, towards a beloved grave at the back of the memorial, that bears but one name.

**SOLLUX CAPTOR**

                “ Can’t we fucking _move_?” you swear, as the pilot does her damndest to fly even faster.

                “ Sir,” Equius says, sweating so profusely that being in the back seat with her is like getting rained on. “ He’s… we’re almost there… Eridan walked, surely we’ll reach the Memorial before he does…”

                “ Fucking _frost_ ,” you swear viciously, and Equius practically orgasms. It’s… kind of adorable. “ Just… faster, goddammit!”

                ( _No,_ you are _busy_. You are the king of badly-thought-out relationships, it is you.)

                You reach in time, in _plenty_ of time, you’d think, except even as you flew into the area you saw him, purple cape a’flying in the wind that will be the last he feels, and before you know it you tear the door off with your psionics and jump out.

                “ ERIDAN!” you yell, falling out of the transport, flying by your thoughts down to the ground behind him. Equius is a thundering meteor next to you, landing hard on the concrete pad of the memorial and cracking it. “ Eridan!”

                He ignores you, looking at Feferi’s grave, the wand in his hand.

 “ Eridan,” you say quietly, bile choking up your throat. _Please, no…_ “ Eridan, look at me, come on. Don’t… don’t do this.”

“ Gonna stop me?” he asks quietly. “ Just… wwant a wway out. Wwant to go home, Sol, I ain’t never had a home.”

He nods to the gravestone. “ Except wwith her. I’m getting _out_ , Sol. I’m… tired.”

Not even drama left in the big dramafish, just emptiness and light. You stare at him through the harsh sun, through optic eyes whose very shittiness is the only reason you can see him at all through the glare, a black shadow in white.

You want him to stay. You’re pale for him. First time that’s ever happened. You just want to hold him until he stops weeping…

…But Kanaya did too, and you are _not_ that guy. You’re… not that guy.

“ Okay,” you say, and you’d cry but that your eyes are steel and glass. “ Okay, just… I don’t want you to. I won’t stop you, but I don’t want you to.”

He sighs, like you’ve tossed a weight on his back. “ Okay. I wwish you luck, Sol. This… this wwould’vve been a lot easier if you hadn’t come, or… or if you’d tried to stop me. You’d havve been a good moirail.”

You shrug, breath hitching in your throat. “ I… thanks, Eri.”

He smiles, and puts the wand to his temples. Equius sucks in her breath.

And then there is only darkness.

 

**FEF**

_ERI_

 PEI

**_ XES _ **

                **_Oh, no no no! That’s not how we’re going to do this my B----EAUTI----FUL matesprit!_**

                Your name is FEFERI PEIXES, and you are DEAD, STUPID!

                Hee hee! Glub glub!

                But it’s good. It’s _better_ than good. That is not dead which can eternal lie; and the game is a _lot_ closer than forever away.

                And you’ll be playing it. You just need some… encouragement.

                You take the wand from your beloved. Eridan bawls as he realizes who it is that holds him, cries into your ghostly arms; you kiss his tears away, kiss his mouth, taste the sun blazing inside him, the desert longing for rain.

                (He should not be so alone. Day needs Night needs Day; the eternal cycle. They cannot be without. It is a cycle and a dance that none should interrupt.)

                You wrap tight around him with many hands, tentacles, gifts of your lusus, mother finally found all these years later at last.

                He cries again and again, happy tears of reunion. He… he thinks he’s already dead.  That’s _hilarious_ , and your mirthful glubs echo in the deep.

                **_Not quite, beloved!_** You say cheerfully. **_I need you alive!_**

                “ Fef?” he says, looking at you with his tear-stained eyes. You kiss him again to shut him up, because Eridan is wonderful in many ways but he talks a _lot_ and he needs to SHUT THE F-----UCK UP!

                **_I’ll return,_** you whisper to him softly. **_I’ll return and help but YOU need to be alive to help! Glub glub glub!_**

                You smile at him and nuzzle him, kiss the worry tension that forms on his forehead away, and he lets you wash away his worries. Eridan doesn’t care what’s going on so long as _you_ want it, and that’s _damn_ useful!

                (You were a cultist, now you are the god. The cycle never ends. You glub happily to your beloved, the second goddess who has ever wanted him; but _you_ are the first one _he_ has wanted, even before the first. You will be better to him than the bright goddess, you will be kind, you will make him happy. You nuzzle him again.)

                There is shouting, worries, a big girl’s hand gripping a small boy’s hand,   Equius’ bodyguard instincts activating on reflex. Oh! You didn’t mean to scare them! For a highblood, Sollux is damn nice, and Equius… ok, in _no way_ is Equius a decent person but she’s a lowblood too, she’s one of your kind, so it’s not fair to spook her.

                You yell to them.

                **_Calm down, it’s F---IN----E! I’m not going to hurt you._**

                You feel more than see Sollux’s eyebrow raise. “ Seriously? Who the fuck is that?”

                **_I’m Feferi Peixes! Glub glub! Nice to M---EE----T YOU!_**

                A pause, then “ What.”

                You chuckle again. **_I’m not quite as gone as you thought! Still dead though, but your lady there can fix that!_**

                “ I’m… not Sollux’s lady.” Sweat shoots off of Equius in such volume that it nearly floods the memorial. Err, not really, but it’s funnier that way!

                **_Glub glub! Would you like to be?_**

                The idea of being a highblood’s matesprit nearly causes Equius to have a fit. “ I… I would be…”

                “ Stop taunting her,” Sollux says, irritated. “ What do you want?”

                (Equius squeezes his hand unconsciously. So cute!)

                Ooh, feisty! Glub glub! **_Equius can build me a body! I’ll need it when the game starts! Gotta possess something, after all!_**

                Sollux cocks his head to the side. “ I… what?”

                You chuckle again. **_Ask Aradia! She knows!_**

“ Wwhat about me, Fef?” Eridan asks, looking up to you. “ Wwhat… do I need to do?”

                You look down at him, kiss him again, soft lips against ethereal. **_Work with Sollux. Improve things for our people, for seadwellers and lowbloods EVER----YWHE----RE! Stay alive. We will be together again._**

                Sollux recovers a bit, because no one is more durable than those who embrace duality; the very act of being stunned initiates the act of _not_ being stunned. “ So… that’s it? Eridan’s problems solved? We all walk away fine?”

                You turn your head to him, really _see_ Sollux for the first time, and smile.

**_You are beautiful_** , you state to the highblood, because he is and you see no reason not to be honest. **_Everything I always wanted in a matesprit- a little unbalanced, a little dangerous, but only for show. Your danger is to yourself; you are, at heart, a good troll._**

                You look down at Eridan in your arms, numb to anything but you, stroke a finger down his face. Looking at him looking at you, loving you with every piece of his fiber, you are content.

                (He is stupid. He is sadistic. He is also _yours_ , forever and always, and sometimes that counts for everything; sometimes all you could ever really want is this devotion. He could be a thousand times worse, a million times more vicious and vile, and if he would still be so loyal, you would still have him. It is past doggedness, past the foolishness of “nice guys”; it is _devotion_ , and you his one true god. You run a finger over his lips; he kisses it reverently.)

                You sigh. **_But I have him now,_** you say, with emphasis deliberate, and bend down to kiss his forehead again, feel him sigh against your throat softly. **_And so I shall not bother with you._**

                You smile at the goldblood, who in his willingness to accept the choices of others is better than most, does not let his desires overwhelm all other things. **_But I do ask you take him for me. Be his moirail. Watch over him in the now, and in the then, I shall watch over you._**

                (You mean it. If he will save your beloved, as your beloved once saved you, then his skinny hacker ass will make it through the apocalypse. Mother murmurs lovingly against your back, echoing the promise in Her own words. Other horrorterrors agree, echo with ten thousand tongues. You speak for them, after all, firstborn of darkness.)

                He pauses, then nods, disturbed but not entirely out of it; sickles run in his blood, death walks with him, and death was always cousin to darkness. “ I will,” he says. “ You have my word. If… if Eridan’s okay with it.”

                You look down at Eridan, knowing the answer. **_Is it?_**

                He laughs. “ Course it is, Fef. Course it is.”

                (Always and forever for you. You kiss him again.)

You smile, big and broad as a shark. **_Thank you!_**

                And, bubbling, you blow him a kiss, before you set off a’swimming, cuttlefish horrors swimming with you.

                (Soon, my love. Night will not leave Day to die. Soon.)

                And you leave all three standing there under the noonday sun, with only a single pair of goggles- _your_ goggles, stolen from the sewers by your mother from your own corpse- wrapped around your monument, to show that you were really here.

                **_Glub glub!_**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS TOOK FOREVER. But it's out now!
> 
> And if you want to read the Fireverse beginning stories, check out HOLD ON TIGHT THE WORLD IS BURNING DOWN. :D


	3. The Space We'll Fill With Time

** The Space We’ll Fill With Time **

**Sollux Captor**

                The time after your visit with the seadweller’s ghost is a whirlwind of calm, a storm of peaceful events. It suits you well; it’s a paradox and paradox is simply two things that should not be, merged into one.

                (Two. Always the twos with you.)

                You head back in the cab, which is now missing a door- and you end up paying the very irate driver for a new one, even splurging a bit and getting him the upgraded model- with Equius holding the door on with sheer might so that she might give you and Eridan some space. You end up giving Eridan his space, too- his last pale was very close and very monstrous, and you will give him his distance. You have time. You have all the time in the world.

                (He looks at you with this beautiful smile on his face, you just return it, so happy for him… running it over in your mind, wondering what the hell that was, eventually deciding it doesn’t matter. It made Eridan happy. You’ll roll with it.)

                You get back, surprise Terezi- yell at her, get yelled back at.

                (She asks you if you would have stopped him; you say no, and she sniffs quickly, gives you an odd grin. “ You’re telling the truth,” she said, then shook her head. “ I was giving him his space!” And she was, so you have no real call to be angry, so you accept her words, apologize, and bow out with some dignity.)

                Then you sleep, after asking Eridan what he wants to do- and he just wants to sleep, so you let him, and you do too, in your own bed away from your new moirail.

                You’ve got time to overcome the distance, to move closer. After what he’s been through, distance is just what he needs.

                You spend the weeks after getting him moved in, setting up his own space- a protected place, a place of his own- and getting him ready for court. He’s grateful, shows it with smiles and happy looks that are as rewarding as shoosh paps would be, sometimes makes an effort to touch your face, though it feels unnatural and you tell him so, tell him to take his time.

                (Time. You’ve got time. Can’t hear the ticks the way Aradia can but the sickle was always related to the clock; you hear the steady swoosh of the scythe descending, life ending, marking time as steady as a clock. There’s a rhythm to it, and it says you will have time.)

                You introduce him to court as Baron Ampora, first seadweller of that title in all the new Empire’s long history, bedecked in a color that had not been worn in the halls of the Empress for longer than any being had ever lived. It’s a scandal at court that _explodes_ , and you fight assassins five days in a row, and in-between you help write Eridan’s speeches, all in favor of seadwellers, wine and dine the aristocrats, and work feverishly on Feferi’s new body with Equius at your side.

                It is the best goddamn time of your life. Eridan’s wand and your new eyes cut the night and all attackers to ribbons, death and hope combing to become _obliteration_ , the speeches are some of your best work (you are uncharismatic at best and so is Eridan, but you’re clever and Eridan is determined, and somehow the traits combine into sledgehammer speeches; nothing clever but much that is powerful), the wining and the dining is an epic combination of trolling and social judo at its finest, and Equius is brilliant. A genius. Hardware, not software, but still; the things she’s done with the robot body. Your software help and her hardware could do damn near anything, you think.

                (And… she is a lot like you. Weird. Submissive to a strange extent. But a thinker, and a tinkerer, and… well. You might work around to getting in the big girl’s heart, you think.)

                The only real problem you have are the dreams.

                (The goddess watches you, and smiles. You see your ancestor, the Psionic, but the stories are wrong, the _stories_ are _WRONG_ , SOMETHING… someTHING HAPPened…)

                Eridan tells you a few weeks later he’s been seeing the same dreams, and that Feferi stopped by in one of his… and she told him it wasn’t _her_ doing.

                …Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short and sweet- and we lead on to the next thing. Skip in time, children.


End file.
